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(s)Elections See other (s)Elections Articles Title: Ballot shortages plague Ohio primary amid unusually heavy voter turnout A U.S. judge in Ohio granted a request late Tuesday from Senator Barack Obama's campaign to extend the voting hours in 21 precincts in Cleveland by an extra 90 minutes because of a lack of paper ballots. But because the order arrived after the polls had already closed, election officials were only able to reopen 10 polling stations, according to the Ohio secretary of state, Jennifer Brunner. That resulted in five additional votes being cast, Brunner said. After a recent state review of touch-screen machines that raised concern about them, paper ballots were made available at all precincts for those voters who wanted to use them. Many more voters took advantage of the option than officials had predicted. The shortages of ballots were also caused by an unusually heavy turnout, officials said. The U.S. judge, Solomon Oliver, denied a similar request for other precincts in Cuyahoga County, home to Cleveland, and for all precincts in Franklin County, where the capital, Columbus, is located. Brunner said that in Clermont and Summit Counties, paper ballots ran out mostly due to a large number of independent and Republican voters crossing over to vote in the Democratic primary. In both counties, only the Democratic ballots ran out. Heavy rain, sleet and ice forced at least 10 precincts to request permission to move, yet the weather did not decrease turnout statewide. Voting officials predicted that turnout would exceed 50 percent, which, they said, was at least 10 percent more than the turnout in the last two presidential primaries. The number of requests for absentee ballots more than tripled those requested in the May 2007 primary, to roughly 187,000, according to election officials. The counting of ballots promised to be slow in part because of the shift away from touch-screen machines and toward paper ballots. In Texas, where voters faced clear skies and long lines, the campaign of Obama's rival for the Democratic nomination, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, held a stormy conference call Tuesday night to sound the alarm about what officials said were numerous examples in Texas where "Obama supporters have taken over the caucus and locked out Clinton supporters who were waiting in line" and had done other things to circumvent party rules. The contest in Texas involved a primary and caucuses. Contributing to the circus atmosphere of the call, which was full of denunciations against Obama supporters and proclamations about the democratic process, Bob Bauer, a lawyer for the Obama campaign, unexpectedly got on the line and heatedly challenged Clinton's communications director, Howard Wolfson, who responded in kind. Hector Nieto, a spokesman for Texas Democratic Party, dismissed the charges of widespread problems. Nieto said the party had revamped its electoral and caucus system specifically to address concerns mentioned by the Clinton campaign. There was a call bank at the party's headquarters staffed by 200 volunteers and a dozen lawyers, he said; by late Tuesday, it had fielded just 12 calls from people complaining about specific problems with the caucus system. Nonetheless, there were many reports of overcrowded and chaotic caucuses, which began when the balloting ended. At one caucus in Austin, well over 300 people jammed into the Maplewood Elementary School cafeteria, quickly overwhelming the space filled with low-slung institutional tables and benches and a sign that said "Increase the Peace," a message heeded by the mellow crowd. Workers there ran out of sign-in sheets and had to hastily copy more. Steve Wilson, a writer and editor who signed in for Obama, said he had expected a crowd but not one so large. "They call this the Texas Two-Step, but it's more like the Cotton-Eyed Joe," Wilson said, referring to an old-fashioned line dance that is quite a bit more complicated than a two-step. Turnout in Texas was projected to be above 26 percent, and there were widespread reports of long lines remaining at closing time for the polls. Over three million voters went to the polls, according to state election officials, and more Democrats cast early ballots this year than voted in the entire primary four years ago. A national voter hot line run by the Election Protection Coalition received 30 to 40 calls from Texas voters who had been turned away from caucus sites. Some were rebuffed by fire marshals because of overcrowding, while others reported being told by people patrolling the front doors of the sites that they had to show proof of having voted to enter the location. The order by the judge in Ohio to keep the polls open late seemed to have little effect because so many of the voting places had shut down. At Giddings Elementary School on the east side of Cleveland, workers had packed up the voting machines when the order was issued. Not far away, Patricia Adams, 29, said she received a telephone call at home from the Obama campaign reminding her to vote and telling her that her polling place at the Lonnie Burton Recreation Center would stay open late until 9 p.m. But when she got there at 8:45 p.m., Adams said, the lights were off and no one was there. "I was real disappointed," she said. "I feel like they took my voice away." Of the more than 1,200 calls received by the election coalition's free hot line, about 60 percent were from Ohio and 40 percent were from Texas, said Jonah Goldman, a lawyer with the coalition. Most were from voters who wanted to find out their polling location or who were confused about registration requirements. Goldman said that the polling place at the Orchard Elementary School in Cleveland ran out of ballots by 5:30 p.m. and that poll workers started handing out ballots from another district that included candidates in a different congressional race. Various precincts in Sandusky County ran out of ballots, and about 300 to 400 voters were turned away. All polling places stayed open there until 9 p.m., said Brunner, the Ohio secretary of state. She added that the ballot printing devices in the county elections office broke down, so new ones could not be supplied. Ohio has experience with counting delays. In the 2004 general election, voters waited more than a month for final results, and in the 2006 primary, when absentee ballots had to be counted by hand, the tally took over five days. A bomb threat at one school in Madison closed its polling place for an hour. A power failure at a polling place in Lake County was taken in stride, as poll workers ran extension cords from a nearby building and used flashlights to usher voters along. Jeff Ortega, a spokesman for the secretary of state's office, said the reason for the increased absentee balloting was that more voters had become acquainted with a 2005 law that eliminated restrictions that previously required an excuse, like being ill, for people to be permitted to cast an absentee vote. In Cuyahoga County, the secretary of state decided to count the ballots at a central location. The county has had a long history of voting scandals, including the conviction of several election workers on tampering charges after the 2004 presidential election and lines hours long to vote that year.
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#1. To: robin (#0)
Rush Limbaugh is laughing. He is claiming that around 35% of REPS crossed over to vote for the HAG.
Mark If America is destroyed, it may be by Americans who salute the flag, sing the national anthem, march in patriotic parades, cheer Fourth of July speakers - normally good Americans who fail to comprehend what is required to keep our country strong and free - Americans who have been lulled into a false security (April 1968).---Ezra Taft Benson, US Secretary of Agriculture 1953-1961 under Eisenhower
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